The setting was Celebro Studios London, home to their fully 4k television studios, where journalists and industry commentators gathered late last November to witness the launch of the revolutionary Rotolight Anova PRO 2. This was no ordinary unveiling though, the launch was streamed live on Facebook and YouTube and hosted by award winning news anchor man Martin Stanford with Wesley Dodd, CEO of Celebro Media Group and Rotolight MD Rod Gammons in the studio.
Kicking off the show Rod was asked what features he was most excited about in this new lighting fixture?
“This is one of the brightest, if not the brightest, light in its class whilst having industry leading battery performance consuming just 72 watts, half of that of any of its competitors in the market, meaning lower running costs and less battery consumption when on location. It has outstanding colour rendering for great skin tones but it is also packed full of features not only for live broadcast but also for filmmakers and photographers”.
LED lighting has been in place since Celebro was set up three years ago but why was the Rotolight brand used? “Currently the studios are using the little brother of this new fixture, the Anova Pro, and when we started we were building a daylight studio where we could control the daylight coming in whilst still having as live television news environment”, comments Wesley. “We understood we needed a bi-colour light and wanted LED to keep energy consumption low, at that stage Rotolight was really the only option for us and we’re glad we choose it. Three years on we have studios full of Rotolight and are proud to be upgrading to the new Anova Pro 2”.
The brightness of the latest generation LED from Rotolight is key demonstrated live with the Anova Pro and Pro 2 set up side by side. With a Sekonic light meter to hand Martin measures the ‘old Pro’ at 6,000 lux. Repeating the test with the ‘new Pro’ gives a reading of 13,000 lux, surpassing the current spec sheet!
When questioned how this has been achieved Rod explains “We are using the absolute latest in LED technology and have increased the number of LEDs from 720 to 960 which have outstanding colour and that brightness performance you’ve just seen”.
The Anova Pro has standard 5 pin DMX512 control, Wes points out “this is great, everyone uses it but the problem is you can end up with a mass of cables in the ceiling and the potential that if one light in the chain fails then others could be affected as well”. As one of the first users of this light Celebro were able to suggest a few ‘upgrades’, one of which was the control via an RJ45 Ethernet cable. The advantages of this is that every light can be connected independently to a switch via an existing Ethernet socket fitting in to an existing IP workflow perfectly.
Rotolight are justifiably proud of the colour abilities of the Anova Pro 2 with a temperature range of 3150 to 6300 Kelvin giving the most flexible of lighting solutions whether in a studio or on location. Colour accuracy is to CRI 96 and TLCI 91 (Television Lighting Consistency Index), the highest it can possibly score, which in real world terms means it requires no correction for a live broadcast environment. A big tick in the box for Celebro! |